


this year's love [an au one-shot collection]

by acreatureofhope



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Collegeverse, F/M, a collection of aus to end all aus, i don't know what's coming next
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6046759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acreatureofhope/pseuds/acreatureofhope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU one-shots and more AU one-shots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in your arms i'll stay

"Would you stop that?"

The sound of her best friend talking drew her attention from the window of the plane, and she turned to look at him, raising her eyebrows. "Stop what?"

"Acting like you're a tennis ball," Finn said. "I know it's been a while, but honestly, Rey, you don't have to bounce up and down in your seat like it's been years."

"I can't help it," Rey said, looking out the window once again. "I'm just so excited." Finn shook his head as she glanced back at him. "Come on. You know you're excited too."

"Yeah, I am, but your excitement is starting to border on excessive," Finn said.

"I'm just not as good at containing it as you are," Rey said. "Put up with me for another half hour and then you can get away from me for a few weeks."

"Yeah, a break would be good," Finn said, though he grinned at her as he spoke. "A full semester of just the two of us was enough for me."

"It won't be just the two of us for much longer," Rey said. "Fortunately or unfortunately."

It had been a difficult decision for the pair of them, choosing to spend the fall semester of their senior year of college in Australia. Not only did it mean uprooting their lives to fly halfway across the world for three and a half months, it also meant putting thousands of miles of distance between them and the people they cared most about (aside from one another).

As wonderful as Sydney had been, as much as Rey was going to miss the warm temperatures that overtook the city in mid-December, returning to the cloudy skies and cold temperatures of the place they called home was more than welcome after the months away.

Even as Finn pretended that he didn't, she knew that he'd missed being home just as much as she had. Neither of them were particularly good with distance, and if it weren't for the fact that they'd both chosen to go on a study abroad trip to the same destination, it was likely that it wouldn't have happened.

The last half hour of their flight felt like no time at all, and Rey couldn't help the grin that spread across her face as the wheels of the plane touched down on the runway. She enjoyed flying more than most—she had every intention of getting her pilot's license once she was done with college—but in that moment, there was nothing that she wanted more than to be on the ground.

Their seats near the cockpit meant that they were some of the first people off the plane. Rey nearly took off at a run once they were in the terminal, and would have if it weren't for Finn grabbing her arm.

"Remember that you're not the only one here, would you?" he said.

"Sorry," she said. "I just really want to see him, Finn."

A misty look passed over Finn's face. "I know what you mean, but running isn't going to do any good. We'll get there when we get there."

His position at her side kept Rey from taking off as they made their way to the train that would return them to landside. It was a short trip, the train nearly full as they covered the distance between the two halves of the terminal, and when the doors slid open, Finn made no move to stop Rey as she exited.

She didn't run, but her steps were quick and Finn's equally so as they made their way towards the escalator that led down to the baggage claim. The wheels of her carry-on bag clicked on the spaces between the tiles that covered the floor, and she drummed her fingers to the same beat on the escalator railing as it carried her to the lower level.

The baggage area was teeming with people, and she strained to look above them as she walked towards the designated claim for the flight that she and Finn had been on. None of the faces registered in her mind as she looked past them, not until she was nearly to the claim area.

His dark hair was the first thing she noticed, followed by the furrow in his brow as he surveyed the crowds of people that he was towering over. The furrow smoothed out to be replaced by a look of complete relief when he saw her, and were it not for the people surrounding them, she had no doubts that they would have been running for each other.

As it was, they both pushed their way through the crowd, Rey dragging her bag behind her. She released it just before she was tugged into his arms, his lips brushing across her forehead as he wrapped her in his embrace.

(If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed Finn doing almost the exact same thing with his boyfriend a short distance away, but she wasn't, and she didn't.)

"I missed you," she said, her voice muffled by the soft fabric of his grey sweater.

She felt him chuckle as much as she heard it, his chin resting on top of her head. "I missed you too. We're never doing that again, okay?"

She nodded, inhaling deeply before she spoke again. "Agreed."

They remained in that position for an unknowable amount of time, pulling away from one another every now and then to exchange a brief kiss before he would fold her into his arms again, both of them reveling in the feeling of being together once more.

For some people, home meant an apartment, or a house, or even a city if they were stretching the term.

Rey was fairly sure that she would never feel more at home anywhere else than she did in Ben Solo's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hateeeeee myself why do I keep writing more things.
> 
> I know this says it's a collection of AU one-shots but as of right now I've only written one (there will inevitably be more). Work title comes from This Year's Love by David Gray ("this year's love had better last, heaven knows it's high time" is the full line, which just seems fitting), chapter title comes from In Your Arms I'll Stay by Kina Grannis.
> 
> People on Tumblr were talking about the height difference between Rey and Kylo/Ben and I realized that it's only a couple of inches larger than that of the one between me and one of my best friends (who is as tall as Adam Driver, so that should tell you something about how tall I am), and that got me thinking about how stupidly perfect our hugs are, which was a throwback to my junior year of high school (when said best friend was a senior) and how we would spend about 60% of the time that we hung out hugging each other (seriously we'd both be standing there with our arms wrapped around each other and we'd be texting other people at the same time. It was just so comfortable hugging each other that it happened constantly), and that made me think about how much it feels like home every single time I get a hug from him now (we don't see each other often anymore because we go to separate universities and he doesn't come home as much as we'd both like and I miss himmmmm), and then this happened.
> 
> (There is nothing romantic there as far as me and said best friend are concerned—he's practically family—but home is home and the feeling doesn't change no matter who it is, at least in my experience. It's comforting beyond so many other things regardless of what your relationship with the person is.)
> 
> Most of these AUs will probably wind up being Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren, because I enjoy writing fluff and imagining what Ben could've been if he hadn't defected, so this is going to give me that opportunity. You have been warned.


	2. halfway

The first time they hugged one another was something bordering on an accident.

Their entire acquaintance with one another was really the accident, if they were being honest.

His uncle had agreed to become the faculty advisor for her honors thesis, and inadvertently become her mentor in most things in life in the process—she didn't really have family, he'd come to learn, and his uncle had steadily become the closest thing that she had. Somewhere along the way, he'd been asked to help her with a project—him, a PhD student with more than enough work on his plate already and a reputation for being sarcastic and cold to most of the people around him—and for some reason, he'd said yes.

He couldn't bring himself to regret it, though sometimes he felt like he should. She was vivacious and kind, though she possessed a wit that more than matched his own, and her brilliance was something that couldn't be ignored—to hear his uncle tell it, she was the most intelligent person to go through the major since, well, him. Her early life experiences had granted her a patience and maturity that few students possessed—hell, he still struggled with it, and he had just over a decade in age on her—and when an experiment failed or she got a question wrong, she would keep going until she got it right.

They'd become friends despite the fact that most people annoyed him, and he found himself with an invitation to watch a presentation of her thesis. While everyone knew before the presentations if their theses had been accepted, only a select few were selected to be printed and kept in the university library for future students to read. The department never revealed who had been chosen until after the presentations had occurred, and he knew that she wanted it desperately.

As a result, he found himself seated in the front row before the stage of one of the largest ballrooms on campus as she gave her presentation, his uncle and her two best friends beside him. He knew that neither of the young men were particularly fond of him—he had little patience for their antics—but they knew that she cared about him, and that was enough for them to be respectful, even if they weren't what one would call friendly.

He couldn't help but be completely in awe of her as she spoke, gesturing at the slides behind her that summed up her research in entirely plebeian terms for the audience in front of her—the presentations were open to the entire university, and while some of the presenters hadn't bothered to attempt to translate the jargon of their final work into something that the average human could understand, she had done it without even having to think.

The applause when she finished her presentation was considerably more enthusiastic than it had been for the others (it probably had something to do with the fact that everyone could actually understand what she was talking about), and he couldn't fight the smile that spread across his face when she looked down at him, her grin mirroring his own.

She didn't come out to join them—everyone was asked to stay behind until the department head announced whose theses had been chosen for printing so that they could be congratulated in front of the crowd—but his phone vibrated in his pocket once she was safely offstage.

**How'd I do?**

He chuckled at that, both of her best friends casting him a confused look as he began to type out a response.

**Brilliantly. They were hanging onto every word you said.**

She didn't have to be standing there for him to visualize the smile that was surely on her face at his reply. The image was ingrained in his mind from countless meetings to talk about her thesis (though those meetings eventually spun out into the pair of them grabbing coffee and talking about whatever new scientific discovery had been made that week, or any other topic that struck their fancy).

There were a few more presentations left, and though he knew his uncle would be displeased at the admission, he hardly paid any attention to them. His only focus was on whether or not she was going to receive the top departmental honor for an undergraduate—sure, she'd get a cord to wear at graduation for the acceptance of her thesis, but everyone coveted the printing. They were allowed to claim it as their first publication (though it was hardly her only claim, as she had been a contributor on some of his uncle's work), and it only went to a select few.

All of the candidates were called out onstage after the last presentation ended, and she stood near the end of the row, her hands clasped behind her back. She was worrying her lower lip between her teeth, and he gave her a reassuring nod when she looked in his direction. The brief smile that she sent his way warmed him, but she was back to biting her lip soon after.

He kept his gaze on her face as the department head went through the standard spiel on how much of an honor it was to have a thesis accepted and how difficult it was to decide who would have theirs printed, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at how long the other man was taking.

When the first winner's name was called—that was what they were, really—he could see her tense. She looked more and more concerned as the second was called, then the third, and by the time the fourth name had been revealed, she was all but bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in anticipation.

He held his breath as the department head made it to the fifth and final name, only to exhale when her name rang through the ballroom.

Her eyes widened, and then she was smiling, the elation on her face forcing a smile onto his own. In his peripheral vision, he could see his uncle and her best friends grinning too, but she wasn't looking at them. Her gaze was locked with his, and she mouthed a thank-you just before everyone was ushered offstage.

They met her just outside the door that led to the wings. She hugged his uncle first, then each of her friends, and he didn't have time to react before she was on her toes in front of him, stretching up to wrap her arms around his neck—though she wasn't anything close to short, he dwarfed her as he dwarfed most everyone else.

It took a moment for him to come to enough to wrap his arms around her waist. He could feel her smiling against his shirt as he rocked her back and forth, her body fitting perfectly against his—she was just tall enough that he didn't have to strain too much to reach her, but short enough that he could rest his chin on top of her head without any trouble.

"Thank you," she said. "For everything."

He couldn't help but laugh at that. "No, thank _you_. It was fun, and you deserve it."

She drew back then, though a part of his mind was screaming that he should never let her go, not after that, and the diminished contact was worth it to see the look on her face. "I wouldn't have been able to accomplish all of this without you. Really, Ben, thank you."

His uncle and her friends drew away from the pair of them—there was a luncheon for all of the presenters and their guests that was due to start—but he paid them no mind, his hands resting on her hips as he looked at her.

He shrugged. "You made it easy."

"I doubt it," she said. Her face fell after a moment, and she ducked her head. "I'm not going to see you anymore."

"Of course you will," he said. "You aren't going to be rid of me that easily, Rey."

"It's not like I just bump into you, though," she said.

"And?" he asked. He slipped his hand under her chin, lifting her head so that she was looking at him. "We'll make it work."

She nodded, though she looked skeptical, and as she stepped away and turned towards the door, he made a split-second decision and caught her hand.

"Rey?"

She glanced back at him. "Yeah?"

"Would you like to grab coffee tomorrow?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. She raised her eyebrows, and he ducked his head. "A date, I mean."

The sound of her laughter made him look up just in time for her to all but skip towards him. Her hand reached up to cup his cheek, her lips brushing a gentle kiss along his jaw.

"I thought you'd never ask," she said, lacing the fingers of her free hand through his own. "Ten o'clock?"

He squeezed her hand, smiling down at her. "Ten o'clock sounds perfect."

Realistically, everything about them was an accident.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All you need to know about this is a) I had a plot idea and it ran away with me and b) height differences are my everything I don't know enough people who make me feel short so I feel compelled to write about those things because they're lovely.


	3. she's the one

He'd never found himself especially attractive, not after junior high when the kids bullied him until he grew too big for them to feel safe casting insults in his direction anymore. His ears were too large, nose too big, face too long, and nobody had ever let him forget it.

His girlfriend, though, insisted that he was handsome (although her preferred term was "sex on legs," but that was a little too crass for him), and if the attractive blonde woman who had been trying to get his attention since he'd entered the bar twenty minutes previous was anything to go by, she wasn't wrong.

He'd been trying to shrug the woman off with great difficulty since the moment she started in on him, as he was attempting to not be rude about it, but it wasn't until he saw a familiar figure come through the door that he grew tense.

Her brown hair curled down around her shoulders, a rare sight given that she almost always had it pulled back into her signature three-bun style. She knew that he liked it down, though, knew how much he enjoyed running his fingers through it when they—well, the point was that he enjoyed it every single time she let her hair out.

When she saw the woman standing beside him, her pace quickened, and she didn't even say "Excuse me" as she pushed past the other woman to reach him.

Her hands went into his hair, pulling his head down so that she could slant her lips across his. He hummed his appreciation into the kiss as he drew her forward to stand between his legs, his arms wrapping around her waist. She didn't let up until he'd been kissed thoroughly, and when she drew back, she had a wide smile on her face.

"Hi," she said, laughing. "How was your day?"

He laughed too, the sound vibrating through both of them. "Hello to you too, Rey." His fingers toyed with the ends of her hair. "Boring, you know, grant writing and all that. It's better now that you're here."

"Isn't it always?" she asked, brushing her lips across his once more before she turned around in his arms to face the other woman.

He pressed a kiss against the crown of Rey's head, tightening his grip on her waist for a moment to caution her. That wasn't to say that he didn't trust her, but she needed a reminder of restraint every now and then.

"Can we help you with something?" she asked, her voice so pleasant that if he didn't know her, he would've thought that she was genuinely concerned about the other woman.

"Oh, no," the other woman said, her eyes narrowing as she looked the pair of them over. "I didn't realize he was with someone, though you don't look like much."

Rey was still smiling, though he could feel the way that her body tensed against his. He dropped a kiss to her shoulder before resting his chin there, watching the exchange unfold.

"I assure you I'm plenty, and I think he would agree," Rey said. "Wouldn't you, Ben?"

"You're more than enough," he said. "Always have been. You know that."

"I know, but your admirers never seem to," she said, her hands moving to rest on top of his where they were clasped around her waist as she glanced up at him. "Finn and Poe want to have a party tomorrow. You in?"

He groaned. "Please tell me this isn't going to wind up like the last one."

"What, the both of them winding up so drunk that we have to take them home?" she asked. He nodded, and she laughed. Neither of them noticed when the other woman moved away, too intent on each other to pay attention. "You'll be happy to hear that they're going to have it at their place this time, so as long as we can manage to drag ourselves home afterward, we're set."

"Do you want to go?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I need a break from studying before I go insane."

He turned her to face him, and she settled her head against his shoulder, exhaling loudly as he traced his hand down the curve of her spine.

"You're the one who decided that you needed to get your master's," he said.

"I know," she said, her voice muffled by his shirt. "How badly do you want a drink tonight?"

"Not especially," he said. "You said you wanted to go to the bar, so here I am. Why?"

"I'm rethinking my idea," she said, yawning. "I'm in need of a nap, and if we're going to that party tomorrow then I'm good now."

"You seemed just fine two minutes ago," he said.

"Being jealous is exhausting," she said. He chuckled and she curled into him, her voice soft when she spoke again. "I don't like feeling that way, Ben, and I don't know why I let myself respond because I hate that too."

"I know," he said. "But you do know that I'm not going anywhere, right?"

"Yeah, I do, but it's kind of hard to remember that sometimes when your boyfriend is eleven years older than you and you haven't even been out of college for two years yet," she said.

He slipped his hand under the edge of her shirt, drawing circles on her hipbone with his thumb. "You do a good job of hiding it."

"Only because it's the only way that I can convince myself that it's not true," she said, her fingers toying with the buttons on his shirt.

He sighed and drew her in closer to him (somehow, no matter how close they got, there was always room to move in a little bit more). "You know you don't have to pretend around me, right? I'm in it for the long haul and that means I want all of you, even the parts that are insecure."

She hummed her agreement, her face pressed against his shoulder. He brushed his fingers through her hair before running his hand along the back of her neck. She made a noise of disappointment when he released her and stood up, his hands moving to rest lightly on her shoulders.

He made eye contact with her, holding her gaze as he spoke. "How about we go home and I'll make us something to eat and then we can have an early night of it, yeah?"

She nodded before she stepped into him, his arms moving instinctively to wrap around her and cradle her against his chest. "I love you, Ben."

He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone on Tumblr was like "Jealous!Rey" and I was like "Yes!" but then that turned into fluff because I am PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE of not turning these one-shots into fluff. One-shots in general tend to be fluffy when they come from me (the ones in _elysium_ are about as sad as it gets and they aren't even that sad—I've only written one where people actually came into my inbox and yelled at me for depressing them and that was someone else's fault for giving me THE MOST PAINFUL PROMPT EVER).
> 
> I was at a total loss for what to call this one until I was driving yesterday to see TFA again and listening to Bruce (I love Bruce Springsteen and I'm not sorry) and She's The One came on and the whole "she can take you but if she wants to break you she's gonna find out that ain't so easy to do" thing was just so Ben/Kylo and Rey that I couldn't help it (also, "that secret pact you made back when her love could save you from the bitterness" I AM NOT OKAY).
> 
> The "I know" at the end was intentional and I'm not in the least bit sorry.
> 
> In case it wasn't obvious, I write a lot of things based off of prompts (be it that someone sends them to me or I just read something that makes me go "MUST WRITE THIS"), so if you'd like me to write something, feel free to give me prompts. I won't promise that I'll write something for all of them (I can't write if I'm not inspired), but I will definitely consider them either way.
> 
> And yes, I am working on the next chapter of _don't let your mind speak louder than your heart_ , I just haven't gotten around to finishing it yet because exams exist and they make me sad. Soon.


	4. this life

They’d been on the road for the better part of five hours when he realized that she was asleep in the passenger’s seat, one of her legs drawn up to her chest and her head lolling on her shoulders. Her hand was still clutching his where it sat on the console, their fingers laced together.

He glanced over at her and allowed himself a small smile. For all that they’d been friends before they became anything more, for all that she was bright and welcoming in her day-to-day interactions, her past had left its mark on her, and it took her a long time to feel comfortable falling asleep around him after they’d started to see each other. Every time she did, it felt like a little victory, a little way for her to say “I trust you to stay with me.”

Even after four years together, he was still in awe of her. There was so much that she’d managed to accomplish despite the fact that she sometimes felt like the entire world was against her, so much that she’d done to improve the lives of everyone around her without even trying, and it was through the simple act of existing that she’d made him want to be better in a way that he never had before.

He hadn’t had a reason to be better, really. It wasn’t that he’d even done anything bad. He was just a prickly person (as she so often told him), and he wasn’t concerned with making friends in his day-to-day life. There were a few that he could have considered friends before she’d made her way into his life, but ever since her appearance, he’d collected many more.

She made a soft sound and shifted, and he glanced over at her again to see that her eyes were still closed. A smile formed on his face once more, and he lifted their clasped hands to his lips so that he could brush a kiss across her knuckles. She turned towards him then, gravitating around him even in her sleep.

It was what they did, even before they started dating. They orbited around each other, always drawn together, in a way that he’d found inexplicable from the very beginning. His parents made fun of him for it, how he’d refused to acknowledge how much his life revolved around hers at the start, and where it would’ve made him mad before, he couldn’t help but grin and bear it. She made the teasing worth it, gave him a reason to accept that his family was doing it out of love, and everything had become easier because of it.

He knew that a few people in his office found it absurd that their lives had become so intertwined when she was so much younger than he was, but the approximate decade felt like nothing when they were together. She was older than her years, and she made him feel younger than he was. The judgement of others was irrelevant, even if it annoyed him every time someone made a suggestive comment.

It had taken him a while to reach the point where the comments evoked annoyance instead of shame. He’d wondered at the beginning if he was taking advantage of her, if their age difference meant that their relationship was inherently problematic, but she’d forced that out of him simply by being there. She had her own insecurities about the nature of their relationship, but together they’d determined that no, he wasn’t going to decide she was too young and leave her, and no, the fact that he was a good bit older than her didn’t mean that he was taking advantage.

(Besides, his family loved her. If he did anything to hurt her, they would’ve killed him.)

The sun dipped further down on the horizon as he drove, and by the time he got off the highway, the sky was dark. Stars dotted it, pinpricks of light that he knew she would be staring at if she were awake, and her quiet sigh as he turned onto the main street of their neighborhood sent a feeling of contentment through him.

She was still asleep when he pulled into the driveway of their house. It wasn’t large—they didn’t need large yet (if they ever would)—but it was nice, and quiet, and well-cared for, and it was _home_. It was theirs, the first place that belonged equally to the both of them, and he knew that she loved it. Even if he hadn’t loved the house for what it was, he would’ve loved it for the fact that she did.

He was careful not to wake her as he opened her door and undid her seatbelt. She stayed asleep as he took her into his arms, curling into him, and though it took a little bit of work to unlock the front door and get inside without putting her down, he did it.

He felt her stir as he took her into their bedroom, and she clutched at his shirt with her fingers as he made to put her down.

“Ben?” she murmured.

He paused. “Yes, Rey?’

“’m going to marry you,” she said, her voice filled with sleep. “Okay?”

He chuckled and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Okay.” She didn’t stop him then as he lowered her to the bed, and he brushed her hair out of her face as he spoke. “How about you put your pajamas on while I get our things out of the car?”

She nodded, her eyes closed. He watched her for a moment, knowing that she probably wouldn’t move until he got back, and then made his way out of the room, trying to contain the feelings that were running through him. They’d never really talked about getting married, though he knew that she hadn’t missed the fact that he’d told his parents that she was it for him.

Her statement made his mind jump to the ring that was sitting in a drawer in his desk at work, the ring that had been there since a month after they’d starting dating, just in case. He’d felt foolish when he’d bought it, but he had seen it in a shop window when he was walking down the street and it had just seemed so _Rey_ —so pretty and yet so practical at the same time—that he couldn’t resist.

Much to his surprise, she had managed to change by the time he returned to their room. She had fallen back asleep in the time that it took him to fetch their bags, and he didn’t bother to wake her as he changed into his pajama bottoms and climbed into bed beside her.

She tucked herself against his side even as she slept, the same place that she’d lain since the first night they spent together, and he slipped his arm around her, a contented sigh leaving his lips.

He wanted to wake her up and ask her if she was serious, if she really meant it, but that would require disturbing her slumber, and he wasn’t going to do that. No, he would let her rest. They had all the time in the world to make those decisions.

They had all the time in the world, and she would always have him, and that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We were road tripping and I had an idea and fluff happened.
> 
> Title is from "This Life" by Bruce Springsteen, which is the most Reylo song ever honestly. "A bang then stardust in your eyes/a billion years or just this night/either way it will be all right" and "At night at my telescope alone/this emptiness I've roamed/searching for a home" and "We reach for starlight all night long/but gravity is too strong/chained to this earth we go on and on and on and on and on/then a million sighs cresting where you stood/a beauty in the neighborhood/this lonely planet never looked so good" and "This life/this life and then the next/with you I have been blessed/what more can you expect/this life/this life and then the next/I finger the hem of your dress/my universe at rest."


	5. you and me

The first thing he noticed when he walked into the café was her—her hair, her smile, the way that she threw her head as she laughed at whatever it was that her companion was saying to her. She didn’t seem to be aware of his entrance, and while he would normally have gone straight to her, he instead made his way to the bar to order a drink.

Her friend made eye contact with him, and he shook his head. He didn’t want to disturb her just yet, didn’t want to break up her lunch, because it would ruin all of his fun. His visit was a surprise—she didn’t know that he was home early from the business trip that he’d been on, and she wasn’t expecting him for a few more days—and he wanted to see how long it would take her to notice that he was there.

She was caught up in her conversation, her hands moving as she spoke, and he smiled to himself at the sight of the ring glimmering on her left hand. It had taken him just over four years to ask her if she would marry him, and though he’d known that she would say yes—she had told him before that she wanted to marry him—it had still been both the most nerve-wracking and most beautiful moment of his entire life.

How important she was to him wasn’t something that he verbalized often. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to say it—much as he hated waxing poetic, he could have spoken for days about everything that she was—but instead that he couldn’t put words to it. The place that she’d carved out for herself in his life was one that hadn’t existed before. She hadn’t filled a hole—she’d laid roots. Everything that she was wound itself around the threads of his personality and bound him together, and he didn’t know what his life would have been without her.

Her friends had been skeptical at first, something that he was all too aware of. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust _him_ —they didn’t really trust anyone where she was concerned. She was too special, too wonderful, to let just anyone into her life. They were more than aware that she could take care of herself, but they were always on guard, always paying attention to see if the people around her were worthy of her presence.

He didn’t think he was worthy of it. Really, he didn’t think that anyone was worthy of it, but she was the only one who could decide whether or not that was true. Her friends told him how happy he made her, how much better her life had been since he’d entered it, but he wasn’t sure if he believed them. Still, she was there, and that was the important thing.

The minutes wore on, and she still didn’t notice him. When he noticed that her meal was winding down, he caught the attention of her waiter. A bill and his credit card later, he watched as the check was delivered to her table. She stared at the waiter, only to turn her attention in his direction when the waiter gestured towards the bar.

He chuckled as her eyes widened, and set his drink down as she all but flung herself out of her chair. She covered the distance between them in a heartbeat, throwing herself into his open arms like it was the only place that she would ever want to be. He folded her in his embrace, lowering his head so that he could kiss her once, twice, three times before she buried her face in his shirt.

“You weren’t supposed to be home until Monday,” she said, her voice muffled.

He laughed. “I know, but I didn’t need to stay for the last few days of the conference since Uncle Luke has it covered, so I caught an early flight home.”

“How did you even know I was here?” she asked, pulling back far enough that she could look at him.

He raised his eyebrows. “Rey, where are you at one o’clock on every Friday?”

“Fair enough,” she said, grinning up at him. She sobered a moment later. “I have to go back to work though.”

“No, you don’t,” he said. “I called Statura and cleared it with him. You’ve got the rest of the day off. He said you worked overtime Wednesday and yesterday.” She ducked her head and he sighed. “You’ve got to stop doing that when I’m away.”

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I hate being home when you aren’t there.” Her voice grew quiet. “You know how I feel about being alone.”

“I know, but throwing yourself into work isn’t the solution,” he said. “Call Finn or Poe and get them to come by instead, yeah?” She didn’t say anything, and he met her gaze with a pointed stare. “Rey.”

“All right, Ben,” she said. “I will.”

He kissed her then, long and slow and sweet, and brushed the loose strands of her hair out of her face once he pulled away. “I’m not trying to force you into anything. You know that, right? I just worry about you after last year.”

“I know,” she said, sighing. “Working twelve-hour days for a week and a half combined with not sleeping wasn’t a good thing.” She smiled a moment later. “You’re the voice of the rational side of me, you know that?”

“I do my best,” he said, brushing his fingers along the line of her jaw. “Now what would you like to do with your newly open afternoon? We could go for a walk along the river, or pay a visit to my parents, or go play with BB-8 since Poe’s out, or—”

She cut him off with a kiss, her hand firm on the back of his neck. When she pulled back, the look in her eyes couldn’t be labeled as anything other than mischievous. “I think I’d like to stop and get some gelato, and then I’d like to go home and spend the rest of the afternoon in bed. How does that sound?”

He was already getting to his feet as he said, “Absolutely perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to write all the fluff for these two. All of it. 
> 
> I've never made the foray into writing smut (and don't know if I ever will), so fluff is literally all I ever write when it comes to one-shots and I'm so not sorry because it's so much fun and it makes me happy.
> 
> If you'd like to prompt me to write more fluff, you can send me things at reynoverthegalaxy on tumblr. I'm always looking for new ideas.
> 
> Title for this comes from "You And Me" by Matthew Barber. He's one of my absolute favorite musicians, an incredibly talented songwriter, and not terribly well-known (I know his music because they regularly use it in Heartland, aka my favorite horsey television show). "You And Me" is just such a peaceful and beautiful song and certain parts of it are so Reylo. "Like the fire and the ice/like the virtue and the vice/like the verdict and the plea/there's you and then there's me" reminds me of Reylo, as does "Like the violence and the calm/like the poem and the song/like the captain and the fleet/there's you and then there's me."


	6. you can stay with me forever

He walked into the house after a morning of business meetings to find that it was strangely quiet. Rey was in that sweet spot between the completion of her master’s degree and the start of her job where she had a few weeks off (not that it was really necessary, since she’d be in the same lab where she had been doing research under the same people, but her future boss had insisted), and she’d been rattling around the house for the last week getting up to all manner of mischief.

Coming home to a quiet house was nothing short of concerning.

He grew more on edge as muffled sounds came from the direction of their bedroom, and he punched in the emergency number on his phone as he took a tentative step away from the front door. As he went, he glanced into the living room and kitchen, only to see that both rooms were empty.

“Rey?” he called.

“In the bedroom,” she yelled back.

He breathed a sigh of relief, locking his phone and slipping it into his pocket as he made his way down the hall. When he reached their bedroom, he stopped in the doorway, unable to stop the laughter that bubbled out of him at the sight of Rey.

She was balanced on their old stepstool, trying desperately to reach the upper edge of the wall with a paintbrush, an old shirt of his and a pair of tattered sweatpants covering her frame. All the furniture had been pushed into the center of the room, old sheets thrown over it, and plastic drop cloths lined the edges of the room. One wall had already been painted a pale shade of grey, the light filtering through the windows picking up the blue undertones.

The look that she gave him at the sound of his laughter only made him laugh harder. Her glare intensified and she crossed her arms, seemingly unconcerned about the brush dangling from her hand.

“You know you could stop laughing at me and help, right?” she said.

“I’m sorry, it’s just funny watching you try to get to the ceiling,” he said. “How’d you even manage the other wall?”

“With a lot of patience,” she said. “It’s not my fault that we picked a house with twelve-foot ceilings, mister I’m-freakishly-tall-and-need-everything-to-be-proportional.”

“And it’s not _my_ fault that you’re a shrimp,” he said, laughing again when she rolled her eyes.

“For your information, I’m plenty tall,” she said. “You’re just a freak of nature.”

“So they tell me,” he said. He nodded in the direction of the shirt that she was wearing, which had already become paint-splattered. “What would you have done if I liked that shirt?”

She smiled and climbed down from the stepstool, dropping the brush on the lid of the paint can as he took a few steps forward to stand in front of her. “Nothing, because you don’t like this shirt, so it doesn’t matter.” Her smile widened. “Welcome home, Ben.”

He smiled in response and drew her into his arms, unconcerned about the paint on her clothes. She hummed her appreciation as he pressed his lips to hers in a gentle kiss, a greeting so normal that it had become routine for the pair of them.

“Did I even know you were painting today?” he asked once he pulled away.

“I didn’t even know I was painting today,” she said. “But I washed all the walls on Tuesday and I was looking at our furniture this morning and I decided that grey would look better than the tan, so I went out and got paint and started.” Her eyes widened a moment later. “You don’t hate it, do you?”

“Not at all,” he said, chuckling as he surveyed the completed wall over the top of her head. “It looks good.”

She wriggled out of his arms and picked up her paintbrush again. “It’ll look better once it’s done. I need to get back to work.”

He plucked the paintbrush from her hand and shook his head. “You’re going to let me get changed, and then I’m going to do all the high stuff, all right?” She was looking at him, her nose wrinkling, and he laughed. “I have longer arms than you do, sweetheart.”

“Fine,” she said.

He kissed her forehead after he set the paintbrush down and then made his way into the closet to find another old shirt and some sweatpants of his own that he didn’t mind messing up. When he went back out into the bedroom after changing, it was to see that she’d poured paint into a second tray and fetched another brush and roller.

He raised his eyebrows. “Why do you need a paintbrush?”

“Cutting in along the bottom of the wall,” she said, her tone the classic “Ben, you’re an idiot” that he’d come to know so well.

“Fair enough,” he said, coating the tip of his paintbrush. He climbed up on the stool and started to edge where the wall met the ceiling. “I’ll try not to let paint drip on you.”

“Wow, thanks,” she said, glancing up at him with a grin on her face. “You’re such a considerate boyfriend.”

“I try,” he said. They were quiet for a few moments before his brow furrowed. “Why don’t you have any music on? You usually do.”

“I had some on earlier, but it was getting a little frustrating trying to reach the top of the wall, so I turned it off because it was annoying me,” she said. “Why, do you want me to put some on?”

“Not if you don’t want to,” he said. “I was just wondering.”

They painted in silence for several minutes before she made a face. “Now I need music on.”

She fished around under one of the sheets, and a moment later, music filled the room. He glanced at her as she resumed covering the lower area of the section he’d just finished with one of the rollers.

“Is that better?”

She nodded. “Much.”

It took them the better part of three hours to finish the rest of the room, even with both of them working on it. The master was considerably larger than the other two bedrooms in the house (one of which had been converted into an office for the pair of them), something that they’d looked for intentionally while house-hunting, but it made projects like painting difficult.

(Of course, it didn’t help that Rey insisted on dancing around the room the whole time, or that Ben would pause in his painting every minute or two in order to watch her, but that was beside the point.)

Once they finished cleaning up the painting supplies, Ben collapsed back on the still sheet-covered bed. Rey laid down next to him, both staring at the ceiling. Their arms were pressed together, and after a moment, Ben took her hand in his.

Rey shifted slightly. “It’s going to look so good once the paint dries and we get the furniture back in place, and I was thinking that I might go out and buy us some new bedding, ‘cause we haven’t gotten anything new since I moved in with you, and—”

Ben cut her off. “Will you marry me, Rey?”

She sat up immediately, staring at him with wide eyes. “Really?”

He sat up too and met her gaze, still holding her hand. “Really, Rey.” She was still staring at him, her mouth hanging slightly open, and he shifted uncomfortably after a few moments of silence. “Unless you don’t want to marry me, in which case—”

“Of course I’ll marry you, you idiot,” she said. “I _love_ you.”

“Oh, good,” was all he could get out before she was kissing him, her arms wrapping around his neck. He had no doubts that he was going to wind up with paint in his hair from all the splotches on her skin, but _stars_ , it was worth it.

After a few minutes, she pulled away and laughed. “Could you have picked a less romantic way to propose?” she asked. “And seriously, Ben? ‘Oh, good?’ Who even are you?”

He could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks and ears. “Sorry,” he said. “I just—” He took a deep breath. “You told me that you wanted to marry me when we got back from vacation a couple of months ago, and I was going to wait until the right moment with the ring and everything, but this just—this is _us_ , Rey, and this house is _ours_ , and I want everything to be that way.”

She was staring at him again, and after a moment, she leaned in to press her lips against his, briefly. “You’re such a dork.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she kissed his cheek and smiled. “But you’re my dork, so it’s fine.”

“It was supposed to be more special than this,” he said. “I do have a ring for you, I swear, it’s just in my office at work, and I had all these plans, and—”

“It was perfect,” she said, cutting him off. “Absolutely perfect. I mean, honestly, Ben. Everything about us is a little bit messy. If the proposal wasn’t weird, I’d probably be worried about it.”

He rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face a moment later. “Good to know.”

“I guess we should probably tell everyone, huh?” she said.

“Probably,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “But I think that can wait until tomorrow, don’t you?”

Her voice was breathless when she spoke. “You’re probably right.”

“Good,” he whispered before he slanted his lips across hers.

She wasn’t wrong—they did need to tell everyone, and they would, but they deserved a few hours to bask in their happiness without the intrusion of anyone else.

To be honest, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever been so happy in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I painted my entire room by myself today (walls and ceiling and all) (because I decided that my room needs to look like it belongs to an actual adult, not a fourteen-year-old) and my ceilings are only nine feet so it wasn't too difficult, but it was still really labor-intensive and I owe my mom about a million thank-yous for doing most of the work when I was younger and wanted to paint my room, even though I "helped" her, because I don't remember ever being anywhere near this tired afterwards. Said painting project resulted in me having the idea for the first half of this one-shot. The second half of this one-shot didn't happen until I was actually writing it. 
> 
> I can't stop writing fluff. I love writing fluff. Fluff makes me happy. I need ideas for more of it because it's fantastic and I'm all about happy Rey and Ben being cute and stuff. This one-shot collection is basically just turning into a fic in and of itself, because the vast majority of the fics in here are connected, but there's not really any angst or intentional plot so I'm not calling it an actual cohesive whole. 
> 
> Besides, I'm sure I'll write a one-shot from a different AU setting eventually once I actually have the idea. I just love writing them in this !verse so much.
> 
> I can be found on Tumblr at reynoverthegalaxy. Thanks for reading, everyone!


	7. to this one i'm sworn

He was terrified the second he got the phone call.

They didn’t call him at work. They _never_ called him at work. That was the rule. If someone needed something, they would send him a text, and he’d get to it on his break, and everything would be fine. That was how it worked.

So when his phone rang when he was in the middle of importing spreadsheets into a database document, all he could do was stare at it. He stared at it for so long, in fact, that by the time he actually moved to answer it, all that he got was a notification of a voicemail.

He listened to the message, his heart rate rising, and as soon as it was over, he was hitting the “call” button.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said as soon as the person on the other end of the line answered. He paused so they could respond, only to nod. “Thank you for letting me know.”

He wasted no time in shoving things into his briefcase—he’d finish out the day at home once he got things sorted—and heading out of his office. Hux was standing by Phasma’s desk as he hurried towards the elevators.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” the red-haired man asked. “You’ve got another four hours.”

“Emergency,” Ben replied as he stepped into the elevator.

The doors closed before Hux could get another word in, and Ben chewed nervously on his lower lip as the elevator descended down to the garage beneath the building. He was at his car in an instant, flinging his briefcase into the backseat as he got into the driver’s seat, and if it weren’t for the fact that it was impossible in the space, he would’ve torn out of the garage without stopping.

He drove as fast as he could without risking being pulled over, the familiar streets blurring together as he made one turn and then another, buildings flashing by on either side. Focused on the road, he paid them no attention, and it took him fifteen minutes to spot the sign for where he was going.

He parked in an employee space after fishing around in his glove compartment for the parking pass that his wife had given him, and as soon as he’d determined where he was going, he hurried inside.

The hallways were practically a maze, but he hurried through them without having to stop and think about his route. He’d been in the building enough times to know which wards he was looking for, and when he reached the appropriate one, his steps quickened.

He pushed into the exam room that he’d been told to go to, his heart in his throat. When he saw the boy sitting on the edge of the exam table, arm bound up in a sling and dark hair tousled, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

“You scared the life out of me, Aiden,” he said.

Aiden rolled his eyes in a gesture so like his mother’s that Ben nearly smiled. “I’m fine, Dad.”

“You broke your arm,” Ben said. “I’d hardly call that fine. And where’s your mom?”

“I’m right here, Ben. And technically speaking, it’s an incomplete fracture, not a complete one.”

He turned around to see Rey in the doorway, a cup of water in one of her hands. She had her lab coat on and her stethoscope slung around her neck, and she crossed the room to press her lips to his for a moment, the weight of her free hand on his shoulder a reassuring one.

“Gross,” Aiden said. “Can I have my water, please?”

Rey chuckled as she pulled back. She passed the cup of water over, and Aiden took a sip from it as she put her hands on her hips. “Now, what have your dad and I told you about taking your skateboard out without permission?”

“I shouldn’t do it,” Aiden said, his cheeks reddening. “Sorry, Mom.”

“No, you shouldn’t do it, and this is exactly why,” Rey said. “Do you have any idea how much you scared us? You shouldn’t have even had your skateboard with you at school.”

Aiden ducked his head, and Ben sighed after a moment. “We’re just glad that you’re going to be okay, A. And I think it goes without saying that there will be no skateboarding until your arm heals.”

“If we even let you have it back after that,” Rey said. Aiden’s face fell. “You have to prove to us that you’re going to be responsible with it before we can let you have it again.”

“I will, I promise,” Aiden said.

Rey raised her eyebrows. “Pinky swear?”

Aiden nearly rolled his eyes, only to stop when he seemingly thought better of it. He wrinkled his nose and held his free hand out, pinky up. “Pinky swear.”

Rey hooked her pinky through his and nodded. “Good.” She glanced at Ben. “You’ll take him home? I would, but I’ve got two more appointments today.”

“I’ve got him,” Ben said. “I’ll grab Izzy from Mom’s on the way home too. There’s no reason to leave her there if I can keep an eye on her.”

“You’re right about that,” Rey said. She sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you about Aiden, Ben.”

“There was no reason for you to call me if the nurse was going to,” Ben said.

“I’m his mom,” Rey said.

“And you were probably in an appointment when he got here, weren’t you?” Ben asked. Rey nodded, causing him to smile. “Exactly. Don’t worry about it. I had a minor heart attack over it, but that’s not your fault.”

“I guess,” Rey said. She kissed him again, her mouth brushing gently across his, and pulled away before Aiden could let out another sound of disgust. “I’ll see you at home.”

“I’ll make dinner,” Ben said. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too,” she said. She turned to Aiden then, crossing the room to press a kiss against his forehead. “I also love you, you little troublemaker. Be good for your dad, okay?”

“Okay,” Aiden said.

Rey gave Ben one last kiss before she exited the room, leaving father and son to stare at one another in silence.

“Come on,” Ben said eventually. “Let’s go get your sister. And really, A, if you want your skateboard back, you’re going to have to prove you deserve it.”

“I know,” Aiden said as he hopped down from the exam table. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Ben ruffled Aiden’s hair. “I know you are.” He chuckled a moment later. “Besides, it’s not like I didn’t do worse as a kid.”

They went out into the hallway, Aiden looking at him with wide eyes. “Tell me.”

“When you’re older, maybe,” Ben said.

Aiden stuck his lower lip out in a pout. Ben only laughed and shook his head.

Sure, the story of how he hotwired his dad’s car at the age of fifteen, stole it, and promptly crashed it five minutes later was a fairly amusing one (and one that he knew Han was proud of, even if the man couldn’t admit it for practical reasons), but it wasn’t exactly fitting for a nine-year-old.

No, he’d save that for later.

Forty would probably be about the right age.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant it when I said the content of these one-shots wasn't going to be entirely college!verse. I literally headcanoned this in the moment and decided to write it, but no regrets.
> 
> In this !verse, Rey and Ben have a nine-year-old named Aiden (obviously) and a four-year-old named Isabel (Izzy for short). I don't know why I picked the names. They just sounded right. 
> 
> Also, yeah. Ben got up to some shit as a youngster. Are we really that surprised?
> 
> One-shot title comes from _I'll Work For Your Love_ by Bruce Springsteen (aka my favorite), with the full line being "'Round your hair the sun lifts a halo/at your lips a crown of thorns/whatever other deal's going down/to this one I'm sworn."
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at reynoverthegalaxy.


	8. with you i don't feel the minutes ticking by

She is all worn-out jacket and wide eyes the first time he sees her, her hands tucked in her pockets as she stares at the replica frieze in front of her. He can’t help but stare too, enraptured by her awed expression.

He sees her next a few weeks later, this time in the hall of gems and minerals. She’s reading the plaque that hangs beside the display of some Greek artifacts, her brow furrowed. Once again, her hands are tucked into the pocket of that ratty jacket, and a few moments later, she steps back and continues on, the image of her reflecting back and forth on the mirrored walls.

The third time he sees her about a month after that, it’s in the hall of dinosaurs. She’s not staring at the _Tyrannosaurus Rex_ fossils, or the _Stegosaurus_. Instead, she’s looking at a large, bird-like fossil (the “chicken from hell,” his favorite), and after a moment, she turns and makes her way into the marine fossil room.

He follows her, though he could never tell you why, and steps up beside her where she stands in front of a massive Ichthyosaur fossil in a glass case. It has long teeth, and somehow it manages to be more terrifying than the _Plesiosaurus_ skeleton which is at least twice the size and hanging from the ceiling above their heads.

“It wouldn’t be fun running into one of these guys, would it?” she asks, her gaze still on the fossilized fish. “I think it could fit my entire body inside its ribcage.” She glances at him then. “Maybe not yours, though. I’m Rey.”

Her statement is matter-of-fact, unconcerned, as though it’s totally normal for some guy to follow her on her museum trips. It takes him a moment to recover from the shock of hearing her speak to him, and he nods when he finally regains his composure.

“I’m Ben,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Finally, right?” she asks, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that we’re often here at the same time.”

“Not intentionally,” he says. “I’m sorry if it seemed that way.”

She laughs. “It’s fine. Most people don’t come to the museum to make friends. I certainly don’t.” Her eyes are sparkling. “At least, not usually.”

“Me neither,” he says.

“Funny how these things work out,” she says.

They stand in silence for a moment, both staring at the Ichthyosaur once again, and he can’t help himself.

“You’re probably right. I think I’m a little too tall for this guy.” He gestures to the _Plesiosaurus_ above them. “Not him, though.”

“How do you know it’s a ‘he?’” she asks. He’s about to backpedal when she grins.

“Fair point,” he says. There’s a moment of silence. “What brings you here so often, if it’s not making friends?”

She begins to speak, and somewhere in the middle of her story they begin to walk. He learns that she lives several miles from campus—“Finances,” she says by way of explanation—and doesn’t always have enough time between her classes to go home, but she can fit in a few museum exhibits. Since they have free admission as students, why not?

They’re walking through the polar exhibit when he tells her that sometimes he just needs to get out of his office in order to think, because he shares it with fellow doctoral students and some of them T.A. and “Some undergrads can be very annoying when they don’t get what they want, which is for you to do their homework for them.”

She tells him that she’s double majoring in architecture and structural engineering, that it raised a few eyebrows when she decided to take on more work than the average engineering student, but she’s at the university on a full scholarship and it would be a shame to waste the time she has. He tells her what it’s like to be a doctoral student and they come to the conclusion that she probably gets the same amount of sleep as he does, which is borderline none.

Talking to her is _easy_. Talking to her feels perfectly natural, because she understands what he says and whatever she doesn’t is quickly explained before they’re moving on again. She doesn’t seem bothered by the level of disdain that he has for many of the undergrads he’s encountered—“I swear I was never that obnoxious when I was getting my bachelor’s, Rey.”

In fact, she seems to share his feelings, expressing her frustration over how many of her classmates seem to completely lack priorities. He finds that she sounds older than she is, that there’s something more going on than what little she’s told him, and when he finds out just how young she actually is, he almost feels guilty. Almost.

(“I’m twenty, Ben, not twelve. Just because you’re a dinosaur doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.”)

He decides that he likes it when she laughs, because those are the only moments where she actually seems as young as she says she is. She seems determined to make him crack a smile, and every time he does he swears her eyes light up.

He finds himself slowing his pace as they approach the entrance to the museum, not wanting the afternoon to end. She’s of a similar mind, he thinks, as she’s not trying to rush off anywhere or using the excuse of class to get away from him.

When they’ve reached the doors and stepped outside, he stops. She pauses beside him, the late afternoon November air whipping loose strands of hair around her face.

“I should go,” she says. “I told my friends I’d meet them for dinner.”

He nods. “I should get back to my office.”

She looks at him for a moment and doesn’t say anything else before she nods and turns away. He wars with himself and she’s only taken a few steps when he speaks again.

“Rey!”

She glances back over her shoulder at him and he crosses the distance in two long strides.

“Same time next week?” he says when he reaches her.

The smile that crosses her face is a beautiful one. “Of course.” She pulls a pen out of her pocket then. Her skin is warm against his as she scribbles something across the back of his hand, and she lifts up onto her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Text me, would you?”

He can’t do anything but nod, and she smiles at him again as she tucks her hands back into her pockets.

She leaves then and he watches her walk away before he looks down at the digits scrawled onto his skin, unable to help the smile that’s forming on his face.

(The first time he kisses her is a month later in front of the Ichthyosaur fossil where they met.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no post, huh?
> 
> I'm sorry about that, but at the same time, I'm not. I've sort of withdrawn from the Star Wars fandom since the last time I posted. I still enjoy it, but the toxic nature of it has made being involved on Tumblr immensely difficult and I find that it's better for me to not be part of it.
> 
> I'm still struck by inspiration every now and then, though, so that's why this happened, and I'm sure I'll be writing more one-shots as time goes by, but I just don't have the patience to finish the other things I've written, and I apologize for that. They might be completed one day, but it's just too much right now (and I have other things that I really need to finish because they've been waiting for years).
> 
> The title on this comes from Kingdom of Days by Bruce Springsteen, with the full verse being "With you I don't hear the minutes ticking by/I don't feel the hours as they fly/I don't see the summer as it wanes/Just the subtle change of light upon your face."
> 
> Thanks for reading, guys, and I hope you enjoy x


	9. i count my blessings that you're mine for always

He didn’t know when love went from being something elusive and hard to understand to something that just _was_ , something that he didn’t have to think about, something that permeated every inch of his life just like the memory of her laughter.

He hadn’t meant for it to happen, hadn’t meant to fall in love with a girl that he’d known as a child and forgotten about until she reappeared in his life as a student in the class he was a TA for, hadn’t meant to let her smile become something that he strived for every single day of his life because her happiness was his.

They were an accident brought about by coincidence and circumstance, their connection to one another something that they’d done their best to deny because _I can’t date my TA, Ben_ and _what about when I’m not your TA anymore?_

Holding himself back was one of the most difficult things he thought he would ever do in his life, when all he wanted was for her to trail her fingers along his shoulder rather than the back of her seat when she left a room, when he wanted her to look at him with laughter in her eyes instead of frustration, when she was everything and he didn’t know how she’d managed to make him feel so small.

And then the semester ended and they went on their first date and she was all hesitant touches and small smiles until he walked her to the door of her apartment building and she kissed him under the fluorescent light and the falling snow, the December chill fading away as their contact sent warmth surging through him.

She went from nowhere to everywhere in his life all at once, her shoes sitting beside his on the mat inside his front door, her coat tossed haphazardly over the back of a chair in his kitchen, her laugh and the smell of yet another frozen pizza baking in the oven his greeting every time he came home— _I can’t believe you still don’t know how to cook_ , more laughter, _why don’t you teach me, then?_

She was brilliant and funny and his coworkers in the department didn’t know what to do now that he wasn’t so surly anymore, now that every text from her put a smile on his face, now that she was always with him even when she wasn’t. A couple of the other doctoral students had made comments, but all he had to do was look at them and say _she’s more than anyone deserves_ to make them shut up.

His parents had done everything they could to fill his life with as much love as possible, but he hadn’t known what that meant until she came into his life.

Love was not the dangerous, fiery thing that it was portrayed as in the movies. No, love was different.

Love was quieter, sweeter, tinged with softness like light filtering through curtains on a Saturday morning. Love was the way she tugged on his hand when she wanted to show him something, the sound of her laugh filling the hallways of his home, how his parents immediately remembered and accepted her. Love was waffles for breakfast on the weekend and how he had to make her coffee every morning to help her wake up.

Love was the feeling of her head on his shoulder when she fell asleep on him while they were watching a movie, takeout Chinese and their friends sprawled across their living room on a Friday night, the way that she always seemed to know that he’d had a hard day and just wanted to sit with her. Love was watching her laugh over his baby pictures with his mother, the look in her eyes when she saw him, her fingers laced with his as they wandered through a nearby park.

Love was easy mornings, the way that nothing in the world scared him more than the idea of her walking away, the knowledge that if she wanted to go, he would let her. Love was waking up to her curled up against his side, how his house had become theirs somewhere along the way, the fact that her voice was the first and last thing he wanted to hear every day.

Love was agreeing that their kitchen was painfully low on snacks at 12:45 a.m., how he always knew she was there even if he couldn’t see her, the sight of her sprawled out across the entirety of the couch even though _you’re so damn tiny_ and _Jesus, Ben, I’m five-six_. Love was having to meet in the middle when he kissed her, how much sense she made, how he couldn’t help but find her beautiful even when she really wasn’t.

Love was dancing around their house because he would always humor her even if it didn’t quite make sense, how he knew that he would be there as long as she wanted him, and probably even after that. Love was rolling the windows down and blasting Springsteen songs as they drove anywhere and nowhere, the soundtrack of his youthful rebellion becoming the music that intertwined itself with their relationship to the point where every memory had a melody to go along with it.

She didn’t seem to know what she’d done to him, didn’t recognize the way that he’d begun to revolve around her, and he wasn’t going to break her naivete.

He knew that she loved him, and she knew that he loved her, and if she never knew quite how much, well…

Love _was_. Love didn’t have to be explained, or defined. There was no scale that he could use to properly show her the exact place that she held in his life, but that didn’t matter.

Love was the way that her socks never quite made it into the hamper in their room, how she bit her lower lip when she was trying to find the right words for whatever she was feeling, the dread in his stomach followed by the feeling of flight the first time he had all but said those three words to her.

_You’re the best thing in my life, you know that?_

_I love you too, Ben. Now shut up, you’re ruining the movie._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, unsurprisingly, I spent a significant portion of yesterday crying. I hope everyone is doing okay out there.
> 
> It is now almost three in the morning and I should've been asleep three hours ago because I have to wake up and go ride a demon horse in the morning (she likes to bite and kick so saddling her is always a joy), but I've also spent a significant portion of time thinking about how absolutely destroyed I'm going to be when Bruce Springsteen goes, because his music has become the soundtrack to my existence, which inspired one line, which inspired this entire one-shot.
> 
> Title comes from _Kingdom of Days_ which I've used for a title before, but this one comes from my favorite verse in the whole song: "And I count my blessings that you're mine for always/we laugh beneath the covers and count the wrinkles and the greys/sing away/sing away/sing away/sing away/sing away/sing away/my darling we'll sing away/this is our kingdom of days."


	10. you're asking me, will my love grow? i don't know

She stared at the television screen, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as the movie’s climax played out.

Reaching up, she swiped her thumbs under her eyes, her gaze still fixed on the scene in front of her. She’d never truly understood her own reaction to scenarios like the one she was watching, never understood why she got so emotional over something that wasn’t even real, but it kept happening, and she was powerless to stop it.

It didn’t make sense to her, not really. Sure, it was one thing to react to a movie when you’d never seen it, when everything was new and you were being hit by the emotions the first time, but she’d seen _Pride and Prejudice_ more times than she could count. There couldn’t be a reason to cry over it anymore, especially given that she’d never considered herself to be an overly emotional person where works of fiction were concerned.

Movies, though? Movies always got her.

She pulled the blanket more tightly around her, sinking deeper into the couch cushions (if that were even possible, anyway). No matter how many times she experienced it, the melancholy that accompanied her movie sessions was never any easier to deal with—if anything, it was worse than usual, given that she hadn’t felt it in a while.

She was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that, had Finn and Poe been there, they both would’ve been crying over it with her. It helped that they all responded in similar ways, if only because it prevented them from making fun of one another over their reactions. They weren’t there, though, and she was firmly convinced that there wasn’t a big enough blanket in the world to be an appropriate comfort in moments like the one she was experiencing.

Creaking floorboards near the kitchen made her look up, and a moment later, she heard the clink of a glass as it was set on the coffee table before the blanket was pulled away from her.

Had it been any other situation, she would have protested at the sudden rush of cold air, but as Ben settled down beside her and tucked the blanket back over the both of them, all she could do was sigh. When she curled into him, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear, he moved his arm to fit around her without hesitation.

It was something that he’d done since the day they met, though it wasn’t always his arm that he was moving—no, it was his life that he was fitting around her just as she fit hers around him, wordless adjustments that they made without conscious thought because they didn’t have to discuss it. They just _knew_.

Her breathing fell into a rhythm with his, his arm a warm weight holding her to him, and when she shifted slightly, he reached out with his free hand to pull the blanket up higher around her shoulders. She couldn’t help but smile at the gesture, at the way that he knew what she wanted without her ever having to say the words, and she moved her hand to trace meaningless patterns on his chest—well, meaningless except for one.

She could practically feel him smiling as she traced one letter after the other, eight of them coming together to form three words that didn’t even come close to encompassing what she felt for him. It would have been frustrating had they not long since accepted that there weren’t enough words in the English language to explain how they felt.

As the last scene faded, the music shifting from one song to the next, he glanced down at her, lifting his hand to brush a loose piece of hair behind her ear.

“Everything all right, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice soft.

She rested her hand flat on his chest, directly over his heart. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You were crying when I came back,” he said.

She smiled slightly. “Old memories.”

There wasn’t any other way to put it, really. For all that she didn’t fully understand her own reactions, she couldn’t pretend that they weren’t at least partly due to the absences that she’d felt as a teenager, to the loneliness that she’d never really been able to shake even with Finn and Poe there to help. To deny the presence of those things would’ve been to lie, and she wasn’t going to do that.

Ever since Ben had come into her life—ever since he’d helped her find all manner of things that she hadn’t even realized she was missing—that loneliness had faded, unless he was gone. She didn’t need him—she didn’t _need_ anyone—but things felt wrong when he wasn’t there. Now that she knew what it was like to have his presence, there was no hiding the emptiness that went along with his departure.

She didn’t have to tell him that, though, because he already knew. He was her best friend (not that she would ever let Finn hear her say that), and she was his, and that was the beginning and end of everything.

Ben ran his thumb gently across her cheek, wiping away a last, errant tear, his dark eyes soft as he watched her. She reached up to lace her fingers through his, and he lifted their hands to his lips to press a kiss to her knuckles.

“Your hands are cold,” he whispered, his gaze locked with hers.

She inhaled deeply. “I suppose they are.”

(He didn’t have to say _I love you_ , and neither did she. They said it a million times a day in a thousand different ways, and that was all that mattered. That he chose that moment to do it by quoting one of her favorite movies was just an added bonus.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One-shot title taken from my favorite line of "Something" by The Beatles. I don't know if it's even entirely applicable for this particular one-shot but I, frankly, just don't give a damn. I was listening to _Abbey Road_ and I wanted to use it, so here we are.
> 
> You know what the funniest thing is about this fic? I didn't even watch _Pride and Prejudice_ today. I was watching _The Sound of Music_ when I had this idea. Either way, I'm not sorry. I was feeling it, and I know how parts of the fandom are about the whole P &P thing (not to mention how I am about the whole P&P thing, but my thing is entirely separate from how it pertains to Reylo. That's just an added bonus).
> 
> I will say that the P&P soundtrack makes me feel all of the things, though it falls below the LOTR soundtracks in terms of that ability (Howard Shore's compositions give me life), and I may have to watch the movie again tomorrow (never mind the fact that I watched it last week....). 
> 
> It's one in the morning so this is probably a vaguely terrible fic (at least by my standards) but I don't care because I've been blocked completely on the writing front for the last two months and writing anything is good for me right now.
> 
> Until next time, Reylo fam. Peace and love x


	11. let your heart be light

He was tall, imposing, and unfairly good-looking—somehow, despite the strangeness of each of his features, they went together, and she would have been lying if she said that she wasn’t a little bit jealous of his hair.

He was also her boss’s son.

She’d been at the foundation for the better part of a year when he showed up, all scowls and glares for everyone who dared to cross his path, but the Senator (retired now, but everyone still called her that) seemed so happy to have her son back that no one questioned it. They just avoided him as much as they could, which was pretty simple given that legal didn’t interact much with the other departments.

She worked so closely with his mother, though, that she saw more of him in a single week than most people had in the six or so months since he had arrived.

As part of the office holiday festivities, all the staff had been drafted into a Secret Santa, with the final gifts distributed at the holiday party before everyone was home for a few weeks—she would fight anyone who said that the Senator was unfair to the staff, because she didn’t know anyone else who got that long for the holidays just because their boss wanted them to be with their families.

When the hat went around, she had drawn the Senator’s son.

It wasn’t a bad thing, exactly, it was just—she may have seen him more than anyone else did, except for his mother, but she didn’t know him terribly well. He passed by her desk every time he went to his mother’s office, and he would say something to her every once in a while, but most of it was fairly inconsequential—at least, the verbiage was. Still, she couldn’t help but try to choose a gift that he would actually enjoy. The office had put a supposed limit of twenty-five dollars on the presents, and that would be plenty for the people who would just buy generic gifts, but she wanted to choose a present that would mean something.

She didn’t know him well, that was true, but she knew the look that she’d seen on his face on more than one occasion—the sadness, and the disappointment, and what she couldn’t help but classify as guilt, and anger too—and it seemed wrong to not try. If anyone else had drawn him—well, with a couple of exceptions—the gift would have been impersonal and something to fill the requirement, and maybe she was overstepping her boundaries, but he just looked so _sad_.

She had tried to be as careful as possible with the few gifts she gave in the week leading up to the party—a note and a small batch of homemade fudge one day, a new mug the next (someone had broken the one he took his coffee in, and if he was anything like her, she knew he would care. Mugs weren’t just _mugs_ ).

If she had to guess, she would say that her best friend had to have chosen her name from the hat. The gifts were so thoughtful—a box of the tea that she drank every morning when she got into the office and had just run out of, a set of the small journals that she used to keep both her work and her personal life organized, a frame for the picture of her with said best friend which was taped onto the corner of her computer monitor—that she didn’t see how it could be anyone else.

The night of the party, her dress was black velvet and her nails shone the same scarlet as the heels on her feet. She had grown up in a southwestern town so dry and sandy that there weren’t even desert flowers to brighten the landscape, and richness had become something that she never took for granted—rich colors, rich flavors, rich _feelings_. That the color went perfectly with the season was just a happy side effect.

“Peanut!”

She turned from her position at one of the empty high-top tables scattered around the edges of the room in the old estate that the Senator had rented for the evening. “Finn!”

He hugged her. “Having a good time?”

“It’s all right,” she said. She looked over his shoulder and smiled at the man who stood beside him. “I thought you couldn’t make it tonight, Poe.”

Poe shrugged. “The director rethought the idea of dragging everyone away from their families at this time of year, and Finn wanted me here, so...”

“How kind,” she said. “Are we ever going to find out what this movie is about, or are we going to have to wait til it comes out just like everyone else?”

“All I can say is that it involves space,” he said. “Sorry.”

She made a face. “Nondisclosure agreements, I know.” She glanced down at the small golden box that she held in her hand. “Any idea how we’re supposed to go about giving our gifts to our Secret Santa recipients, Finn?”

“I think we’re meant to hand them out after dinner,” he said. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” she said.

He watched her for a moment before nodding. “All right.” Turning his attention to Poe, he smiled. “I’m going to go get a drink. You two want anything?”

“I’m all right, thanks,” she said.

“I’d like to dance with the pretty lady, if she’ll have me,” Poe said, holding his hand. She laughed, tucked the box into her small shoulder bag as best she could, and slipped her hand into his before he looked back at his husband. “And I’d like the usual, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Finn nodded. “You two go have fun.”

Poe pulled her out onto the floor and spun her around. He was a good dancer—he had to be graceful and coordinated, she supposed, given how many of his own stunts he did—and he had her laughing as he steered her around the other couples. She wasn’t the best dancer herself, but she didn’t have two left feet either, and he did a good job of leading so that she didn’t look like a complete idiot.

He passed her off to Finn then when he returned with the drinks, and despite the fact that neither of them were especially coordinated, they’d spent enough time spinning around in the living room of their apartment in college that they could have fun if nothing else. She was sure it wasn’t as pleasing to watch as when Poe was leading, but that wasn’t what mattered.

There was one gaze that she couldn’t ignore, though.

The Senator’s son stood against the walls, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. He took a sip from it as he watched her, though he turned away when they made eye contact. Judging by his posture, he was less than thrilled about where he was, but she couldn’t deny that he looked the part.

Unsurprisingly, he had gone for a monochromatic color palette, but for once it didn’t look out of place. In the office, nearly everyone took advantage of the Senator’s lack of concern for traditional color palettes, but he had stuck to dark neutrals—the navy blue shirt he’d worn the previous week was the most adventurous she’d seen him be with his clothing since his arrival. At the holiday party, though, even the ties were relatively subdued.

She didn’t know where he went during dinner. Finn and Poe kept her distracted at their table, where they had been joined by some of her favorite coworkers, and she spent most of the meal laughing as Poe regaled them with tales of onset antics from some of his past projects.

As their plates were taken away, though, she saw a dark figure cut out through the glass doors that led out to the patio—it was open to them, but no one had taken advantage of it up until that point. No matter how beautiful the lights were, or the snow, it was cold, and braving that didn’t seem to be worth it when they could just look through the windows.

She pulled the long, slender box out of her bag and stood up, not bothering to give an explanation as she hurried away from the table.

The cold bit at her as soon as she stepped outside, and for a moment she considered going back to obtain the coat that still hung from the back of her seat. The thought faded from her mind as soon as she saw him.

He stood over the patio railing, his hands braced against it and his back to her. She took a step forward, out from under the overhang of the roof, a few snowflakes falling to decorate her hair and shoulders as she did.

“Ben?”

He glanced back over his shoulder to look at her, making eye contact with her for a brief moment before looking out over the grounds again. “Rey.”

She took another step forward. “Are you leaving?”

He shrugged.

“We still have Secret Santa.” She stepped forward again. “You can’t go before we do the final exchange.”

“I’ll get whatever it is after the holiday,” he said, his voice so cool that she stiffened.

She swallowed. “What about right now?” He turned around to look at her as she held the box out, and she smiled weakly. “Surprise, I guess.”

He barely looked at the box as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and took a step forward. “You’re cold.” He pulled the jacket around her shoulders, the statement just dying on his lips.

She knew she should thank him, but something else came out instead. “Would you just open the damn box, Ben?”

He looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he took the box from her hands and carefully removed the wrapping paper. She would have laughed at the gesture if it weren’t so unusual. Instead, her breath caught in her throat as he snapped open the case.

Whatever he was going to say disappeared as he turned his attention back to her. The fountain pen sat gleaming in its case, the reflection of the lights strung along the edge of the roof turning the shiny black of the barrel into a tiny galaxy of stars, but he wasn’t looking at it.

He was looking at her.

She took a half-step backward, her hands going up to clutch at the edges of the jacket and draw it more closely around her as she did. “I’m sorry if it’s too much, I just—I see you writing all the time, and you’re always using those crappy pens from the supply closet, and I really need to tell the Senator that we should get new ones because those ones are terrible, and—”

“Rey.”

She stopped speaking when he said her name, their gazes locked and her lips parted. He was watching her with an emotion that she couldn’t—wouldn’t—name filling his expression, and after a moment, he nodded at her.

“Check the right pocket.”

She did as he said, still watching him. Her eyes widened when she felt the brushed fabric of the box, and she pulled it out of the pocket to flip it open.

“My necklace,” she whispered when she saw the box’s contents. She ran her finger over the charm that hung from a gold chain— _Carina_ , her grandfather had called the constellation in the letter he left with it, _the keel of a ship so that you may always have control and stability_. “How did you—”

“I found it last week,” he said. “In the parking lot.”

“I thought I lost it when we went out to lunch,” she said. “The chain snapped and I didn’t notice.” She looked up at him. “How did you know it was mine?”

“You wore it every day, and then one day you weren’t wearing it anymore,” he said. “I thought about giving it back to you when I found it, but it seemed useless without a chain, and I wanted to give you something important because you deserve it and this seemed like it would be—”

“Ben,” she said.

He just looked at her.

She took a step forward, her gaze locked with his. “You’re rambling.”

“And?” he asked.

“Stop it,” she said.

He didn’t have the chance before she stood on her toes and kissed him.

For a moment, it seemed like he wasn’t going to respond, and she felt something she didn’t even know she had break inside of her. She was just about to back away when his arms slipped around her, the warmth of his hands on her back and at the nape of her neck searing even though his jacket and her dress, and there didn’t seem to be any response other than wrapping her arms around his neck and pulled herself closer.

When they finally broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve wanted to do that since the day I met you.”

Just before her mouth found his again, she smiled. “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously wanted to name this "until then we'll have to muddle through somehow" because that is literally my favorite line from that song, but it seemed a little too melancholic for this, sooooo... Here we are. Christmas fic. Holiday fic. Whatever makes you happiest. I had to do it. Is Poe literally cast as an actor in Star Wars in this one-shot? It's possible, but you know, NDAs. The whole stars thing that's in this was honestly an accident (aside from the necklace, that was on purpose). Kinda tempted to add this 'verse to the long list of ideas I'm developing for multichapter AUs, but for now we just have this (which I wrote in like, an hour, so sorry if it's kind of a mess). 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy, and happy holidays (or just happy winter, if you don't celebrate anything). We celebrate the winter solstice in my family along with Christmas, so I have a slightly different holiday experience than most people, but I'm grateful for it (that's the whole point of the solstice for us—we light candles and give thanks on the shortest day of the year, and that makes it a little less dark).
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at reynoverthegalaxy.


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